1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a bill arranger for discriminating bills and sorting them based on the discrimination.
This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 11-64110, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional bill arranger for discriminating bills and sorting them based on the results of the discrimination is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 7-21437.
The bill arranger comprises a loader, a conveyer, a discriminating device, a plurality of stackers, and a wrapping device.
The loader loads a number of stacked bills, and sends the bills one by one into the bill arranger.
The discriminating device discriminates the bills sent from the loader into the bill arranger with regard to the denominations of the bills.
The conveyer conveys the bills, which the loader sent into the bill arranger, to one of the stackers and the wrapping device, based on the results of the discrimination by the discriminating device.
The stackers stack the bills conveyed from the loader by the conveyer. The stackers are exposed to the outside to allow an operator to remove the bills stacked therein.
The wrapping device stacks a predetermined amount of bills transferred from the loader through the conveyer, and wraps a tape around the stacked bills.
Conventional bill arrangers are mainly used to sort the bills loaded into the loader according to denomination. Therefore, the stacking capacities of the stackers are often not sufficient. Recent conventional bill arrangers can perform various types of sorting processes, e.g., sorting bills of the same denomination into obverse bills and reverse bills. A number of bills may be concentrated in a specified stacker, depending on the type of sorting process. Just after starting of the sorting process, the stacker may become full of bills, and then the sorting process may be terminated, thus resulting in reduced efficiency in the process.
To solve this problem, the capacities of the stackers for stacking bills may be increased. As the stacking capacities are increased, the stacking spaces in the stackers are increased. Therefore, the moving range of the bills delivered into the stackers by the conveyer becomes large, particularly, at the beginning of the process. The bills delivered into the stackers by the conveyer at the beginning of the process may be unstable, and may interfere with the following bills delivered into the stackers from the conveyer, and the stacked bills will be irregularly stacked.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a bill arranger which can regularly stack bills, which are delivered by a conveyer, in stackers even when the stacking capacities of the stackers are increased.
To achieve the purpose, the bill arranger of the present invention comprises: a loader for loading bills and feeding the bills one by one; a conveyer for conveying the bills fed from the loader; a discriminating device for discriminating the bills conveyed by the conveyer; a plurality of stackers for stacking the bills, which are conveyed by the conveyer, so that the bills can be removed; an operating device for selecting one of sorting process modes which defines a method of sorting the bills loaded in the loader; a controller for delivering the bills, which are fed from the loader, to one of the stackers, by the conveyer, based on the results of the discrimination by the discriminating device, according to the sorting process mode selected by the operating device; and guides, provided in the stackers, which are movable by the weight of the stacked bills delivered into the stackers from the conveyer.
When the bills loaded in the loader are fed, the conveyer conveys the bills. While conveying the bills, the bills, are discriminated by the discriminating device. Based on the results of the discrimination by the discriminating device, the controller delivers the bills to one of the stackers according to the selected sorting process.
Thus, the bills are stacked in the stacker the stackers have guides movable by the weight of the stacked bills delivered to the stackers by the conveyer. The guides reduce the stacking spaces in the stackers when there is a small amount of bills, and move as the number of bills increases so that the stacking spaces are increased. Therefore, the guides narrow the moving range of the bills within the stackers at the beginning of the process. The bills, which are delivered to the stackers at the beginning of the process, are stably stacked and do not interfere with the following bills delivered into the stackers by the conveyer so that the bills are regularly stacked.
Further, the guides move by the weight of the bills delivered into the stackers by the conveyer. The movement of the guides is not based on the thickness of the stacked bills. Therefore, the bills can be freely delivered into the stackers by the conveyer.
Each of the guides comprises: a movable guide plate; and a spring for urging the guide plate.
The guides reduce the capacities of the stacking spaces in the stackers by the urging force of the springs when there is a small amount of stacked bills, and move as the number of bills increases so that the capacities of the stacking spaces are increased. With this simple construction, the moving range of the bills within the stackers is narrowed at the beginning of the process. Thus, the guides can be simplified.
The guides are rotatably attached to the stackers.
The guides reduce the capacities of the stacking spaces in the stackers when there is a small amount of stacked bills, and are rotated as the number of bills increases so that the capacities of the stacking spaces are increased. The construction for narrowing the moving range of the bills within the stackers at the beginning of the process can be further simplified. Thus, the guides can be further simplified.
The guides are rotatably supported at output openings of the stackers for removing the bills. Because the guides are rotatably supported at the output openings of the stackers, the guides do not narrow the output openings. Thus, the operator can easily remove the bills through the output openings from the stackers.
The guides are made of resin material deformable by the weight of the stacked bills delivered into the stackers from the conveyer.
These elastic deformable resin guides reduce the capacities of the stacking spaces in the stackers when there is a small amount of bills, and are deformed as the number of bills increases so that the capacities of the stacking spaces are increased. With this simple construction, the moving range of the bills within the stackers is narrowed at the beginning of the process. Thus, the guides can be further simplified.